The Weekly Digest (April 6, 2025)

Apr 6

Happy Sunday, Brionies! Here’s what you need to know about local politics this week and beyond:

San Francisco City Hall

Tuesday, April 8, at 2pm: Regular Meeting of the Board of Supervisors (agenda here):

Item 12 – Resolution authorizing the City to issue $64 million in revenue notes (i.e. borrow) to fund a 92-unit housing project at 850 Turk Street. Another day, another $64 mil. Who’s worried about San Francisco’s $840 million budget deficit? Not the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, apparently.
Item 13 – Resolution authorizing a loan of up to $11,595,214 to finance the acquisition, rehabilitation, and permanent financing of three existing affordable multifamily rental housing projects located at 1652-1654 Eddy Street, 3554-17th Street, and 195 Woolsey Street.
Item 26 – Resolution declaring San Francisco as a sanctuary for women seeking housing, and urging the City to coordinate shelter and services “specifically for women and women-identified survivors of domestic abuse, sexual exploitation and violence, human trafficking, and street entrapment and trauma.”
Item 31 – Resolution condemning President Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport noncitizens as “an abuse of power and threat to our constitutional order.” Counterpoint.

Wednesday, April 9, Regular meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee (agenda here):

Items 6 and 7 – Resolutions relating to an 89-unit multifamily affordable housing project at 65 Santos Street, known as Sunnydale HOPE SF Block 7, including authorization of a revenue note in an amount up to $53,305,000 and a loan of up to $18,050,000. The total projected cost of Block 7 is $107,600,000, which works out to $1,208,989 per unit.
Items 8 and 9 – Resolutions relating to another multifamily rental housing project: Sunnydale HOPE SF Block 9, with 95 units, at 1652 Sunnydale Avenue. The total projected cost for Block 9 is $113,500,000, or $1,194,737 per unit. We wonder if these eye-poppingly expensive and inefficient housing programs will survive DOGE.
Item 11 – Resolution approving an amendment to a grant agreement with Abode Services for rapid rehousing, extending the term for two years and increasing the amount by $9,292,568.
Items 12-14 – Resolutions approving grants to various service providers for the homeless, including Episcopal Community Services ($9,038,341 for an additional three years at the 121-unit Henry Hotel); Five Keys ($4,857,296 for an additional two years at the Artmar Hotel, provider of permanent supportive housing for 60 transitional age youth); and Mission Action ($8,530,284 for an additional two years of 91 emergency shelter beds).

Happenings around town

What we’re reading

This week, the San Francisco Standard makes a new entry on the list of bourgeois enemies of the working class (along with car drivers, business owners, Amazon customers, or - God forbid - landlords): parent-teacher associations. That’s right, those greedy PTAs are in the midst of “a springtime circuit of elaborate themed parties, silent luxury auctions, and open bars where parents shell out thousands to cover what the cash-strapped school district doesn’t.” The purported theme of the article is that PTAs are freaking out about new fundraising rules set by the state, but the author delights in painting parent volunteers as educationally-minded Marie Antoinettes. Every school should have adequate resources, but demonizing parents for wanting their kids’ schools to have smaller classes and learning support isn’t fair or productive.
Mayor Lurie unveiled a new rezoning plan this week. It will allow 65-foot buildings on California, Clement and Balboa Streets and lift height limits on Geary, Taraval, and Judah. In a plot twist, the plan also proposes increased density for parts of the Marina and Cow Hollow, which may cause drama with some of his West Side supporters and neighborhood groups. This one could get spicy.

Quick hits

Palate cleanser

This week in San Francisco history

Construction began on San Francisco’s fourth and current City Hall on April 5, 1913. The Beaux-Arts structure was designed by architect Arthur Brown Jr. and completed in two years, in time for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition.

Bill Jackson

The Weekly Digest (April 13, 2025)